Sunday, April 27, 2008

I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore


I had a Fairly Decent Time this weekend. (Not that anyone asked, but I feel it's my duty to make some kind of post here.) I drove to Decorah, Iowa, Friday afternoon in order to attend a concert by the two freshmen choirs of Luther College. The youngest fruit of my loins, KayJay, is in the 50% of said choirs composed of those of the female persuasion.

Right away, I suppose I'm in trouble with the college's Protectors Of Omnipresent Political-Correctness (POOP-C) for calling them freshmen choirs. I'm sure they would prefer freshpersons choirs, but even POOP-C recognizes that as the awkward mangling of English that it is. I'm thinking they're actually called first-years instead of freshmen. I'm also thinking I may have to urlp.



When last I mentioned a trek to the Home of the Norse (in the now-dormant MySpace version of Almost the Truth) I was grousing about how POOP-C had done major reconstructive surgery on some of the Christmas hymns that the audience was asked to sing: they changed any lyrics alluding to masculinity (you know, those evil words like mankind) into non-gendered weasel words. ("Pleased as man with us to dwell; Jesus, our Emmanuel.") This time around, all was fine...except for this one song KayJay's choir sang, "The Womanly Song of God." Owing to the fact that 87% of the so-called lyric consisted of doot-doo-dee-doot-dah, I was having a hard time understanding 1) what was so womanly about this song, other than the fact that young women were singing it; and 2) what was so godly about it?

And then the whole Billy Jean King vibe broke loose and the choir sang the line "I am the God of a thousand names. Why can't one of them be Women Singing?"

Well, right off the top of my head, I'd answer by saying, "Maybe because Women Singing isn't a name at all, unless you belong to that North American tribe that gives people nicknames like Dances With Wolves and Scarfaced Booger-Eater."

But seriously, it was a wonderful concert and I practically burst with excitement when the director announced that the women's choir was changing its name from Pike Kor to Aurora.

HA! Just kidding!

No...they really are changing their name...I was kidding about being excited about it.


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